


Anything, Anything

by seraphim_grace



Category: Weiß Kreuz
Genre: BDSM, Body Modification, Car Sex, Dubious Consent, Exhibitionism, M/M, Shibari, cross dressing, pain play
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-09
Updated: 2016-09-09
Packaged: 2018-08-14 01:53:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,551
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7994317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seraphim_grace/pseuds/seraphim_grace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Aya makes a devil's bargain with Crawford</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It was raining when Crawford opened the door to the apartment. It was slick and heavy and Abyssinian looked something like a drowned rat when he saw him. His unkempt hair was pressed to his skin and he hadn’t worn a heavy coat so the sweater he wore was sodden. “Come in,” Crawford said without further ado and grabbed the younger man by his arm.

“My sister.” Aya stammered.

“I know.” Crawford replied and practically threw him inside by his arm.

They didn’t even give him a towel as he stood in front of them, dripping unto the carpet. Nagi was wearing a black tee and jeans, he sprawled in an arm chair reading a book. Farfarello had been sat watching the television and Schuldig was missing. “you wanted us.” Crawford drawled.

“My sister.” Aya repeated a little woodenly.

“If that’s all you’re going to say,” Crawford said crossing his arms in front of his chest, “you can leave now.”

“Please, let me see her,” Aya stammered out, “I’ll do anything”

Crawford’s smirk was cruel when it slithered across his face. “I know you will.”

At that Nagi began to look interested, Crawford looked across at the teen. “You know what to do.”

Nagi’s smile was a pale mockery of Crawford’s as the wet clothes stripped themselves from Aya in a cloud of denim and orange wool until he was naked. Then Crawford licked his lips, and gestured to Farfarello, “prepare him,” he said quietly. “And show him his sister.”

Farfarello pressed Aya up against the glass and into the restraints. The glass was a large cinema screen, which showed some kind of nanny cam. It showed his sister asleep, Nagi sat beside her now, reading a book.

“His little angel,” Farfarello mocked against Aya’s ear as he pressed himself up against his back, “sweet on her, Nagi is,” Aya wanted to resist but Farfarello had him firm, “don’t worry, sweet kitty, he wants the sleeping princess, he won’t be interested when she’s awake.” He rubbed his crotch up against Aya’s bare ass and ran the tip of a pierced tongue along the nape of his neck. Then with his hands on his ribcage flipped him over so his back was to the glass. Then ran the flat of his scarred palm along Aya’s stomach admiring how it quivered under his touch. “The kitty doesn’t like his belly rubbed, ne?” Farfarello said, and then opened a drawer beside him. It was full of needles, long thin spikes of metal and a bottle of betadine.

“Crawford likes the pretties,” Farfarello said, swabbing Aya’s stomach with the antiseptic, “and he likes the pretties to shine.” Lifting one of the needles he pulled the flesh of his navel taut and pushed it through. He followed it with a silver hoop which he twisted shut as Aya cried out.

Farfarello cuffed him on the face, “you’re an assassin, stop being such a jessie, they’re just little shinies.” Aya bit his lip when he lifted the next needle. “Here,” Farfarello said running his fingertips over the jutting bone of his hip, “you’ll wear his mark here when he’s done with you, he’ll send you back to me for it, I’ll make you as pretty as a picture. He likes it when I make them pretty.” He toyed, for a moment, with the navel ring before he went to a small cupboard and pulled out a pair of black leather trousers and shook them out with a snap. “And I’ll make you a pretty kitty indeed.”

He pulled the trousers on roughly, Aya’s skin was damp from the shower that Farfarello had forced upon him and the leather wanted to stick but Farfarello didn’t stop, he just tugged it until he was in place. They might have been a size too small but Farfarello turned him in the restraints and tied the laces that showed the cleft of his ass, and slapped the cheek for good measure. Long leather sleeves were buckled about his wrists, one of which had a metal glove with sharp claws instead of fingers. Then Farfarello lowered him to his knees. With quick deft tugs he braided his hair and pinned it up underneath so it showed like a ridged extension to his skull. “Nothing permanent,” he said as he licked along the side of his face, “but I’ll make you pretty regardless.”

A black lace fragment was pulled tight across his face covering him from forehead to the base of his nose and was quickly pinned into his hair. Farfarello sucked on his tongue for a moment in thought, then opened another drawer full of jewellery, he removed Aya’s pendant earring with a “you can have it back, kitty, when he’s done” and replaced it with complicated webs of wire and a deep red stone, one in each ear.

  
He pushed a gold ring around his toe and then tugged him back to his feet with the restraints. “Pretty kitties have markings, ne, all along,” he trailed his finger tip the length of his spine, “their back.”

Aya was glad he couldn’t see what Farfarello was doing but he felt the chill of the betadine and then the sharp sting of a thick needle pressed through his skin, again and again and again. “not something to do yourself, kitty,” he breathed against Aya’s ear, “but I know what I’m doing.”

His back stung and then pulled as Farfarello worked behind him and he knew that he would do anything for his sister, even this.

  
Crawford could only applaud Farfarello’s transformation of the boring and rather staid Weiss assassin, he watched it all on the nanny-cam.

When Aya entered he did so hiding behind the lace veil that Farfarello had given him, he was wearing kimono clogs and he had stepped into Abyssinian mode, the part of him that would do anything for a mission – would do anything for his sister.

Crawford sat on the edge of a low backless couch and looked at the vision Farfarello had prepared for him. Abyssinian was far more attractive than Aya anyway. Nature gave deadly creatures the most vibrant colouring afterall. His leather trousers looked sprayed on, and draped around his hips was a leather peplum that fell to his ankles. His chest was bare but where one of Crawford’s pets would wear a tattoo was a painted caltrop, his own symbol. A faint silver chain was draped through his navel ring from around his back, “turn around,” Crawford said and Abyssinian did. At this Farfarello had created a masterwork. The chain was threaded through twisted needles placed strategically through Abyssinian’s muscles and ended with a scarlet silk tassel. He had used the chain and the needles to create a corset effect.

Crawford was proud of him.

Abyssinian looked positively edible.

“You’ll do anything.” Crawford repeated himself.

Abyssinian blinked his acknowledgement.

“Turn on the cd player.”

The song was soft and sexy when it started, _“We fall through water, unsung, unseen, and days though endless lose more light and heat.”_

Abyssinian raised his head in pride and turned back to the man watching him. “Touch yourself,” Crawford said, “use the claws, and make it hurt.”

  
He ran the tips of the claws across his chest raising thin red welts, they were razor sharp. Crawford licked his lips. “Just how far will you go?”

“I’ll do anything.” Abyssinian repeated and Crawford knew it was true. Already he had let Farfarello dress him in leather and chains with a lace veil.

“For now, just touch yourself.” So Abyssinian did, running the sharp claws along the lines of his muscles, occasionally rubbing a silver fingertip against a pink nipple as a man’s whispery voice sang _“For I am overthrown.”_

Thumbing the remote control Crawford changed the song, it was the soft thumbing of an acoustic guitar. He leant back, his black cashmere sweater pulling against his chest and revealing the line of hair that led to his crotch. “Remove the gloves, use your teeth.”

And Abyssinian did, he wrapped his lips around the buckle negotiating it to sharp white teeth and pulled away buckle after buckle, he remained silent as behind him a second whispery voice began to sing.

_“I guess that you could say that things worked out okay for now.”_

When his arms were bare the man was singing the chorus softly, “I’d ask you to sing along,” Crawford said quietly, “if you knew the words.” He removed his own sweater so that he sat there in black jeans and bare feet, “tell me what you want, Abyssinian.”

“I want my sister,” he replied.

“Tell me what you want and I’ll give you it.”

“I want my sister,” he repeated.

“And what do you offer in exchange?” Crawford repeated, “what have you got that I would want?”

“I have only myself.”

_“Because I’m reckless.”_

“Then show me. Strip, but leave the shoes, the veil and the jewellery.” So Abyssinian did.

He stood in front of Crawford in all his shaved glory, his skin mottled with thin grazes and slashes and the shining silver chain that criss crossed up his back. Behind him, with a heavy clunk the cd player changed tracks. “I put a spell on you,” a man almost drawled, “because you’re mine.”

Crawford was hard enough to hurt, and it seemed Abyssinian wasn’t far behind him, staying in those trousers must have been incredibly uncomfortable but he never gave a sign of it. “Turn around,” Crawford said, “and touch the tops of your feet with your legs straight.” He knew that Abyssinian would be limber enough for the maneouver. “Tell me what you are.”

“Yours,”

“How do you want it?”

“Anyway you want.” The words were said by rote.

Crawford laughed, it was derisive, “you’re a slut,” he said, “look at how hard this has got you,” with a hand lubricated by the gel that was on the couch beside him he grabbed Aya’s cock and manipulated it, “you want it, don’t you slut.” Aya couldn’t help but groan and bend into the hand as a firm finger began tracing the crack of his ass, pushing slightly at his pucker. Aya was torn between the two sensations, the hot hand around his member and the finger, then Crawford pulled both hands away and slapped him hard. Aya recoiled. “Tell me you want it.”

“I want it,” Aya said yearning for the touch.

“you want me to hurt you,” Crawford said, “because then it’s okay, you want me to force you because then you don’t have to want me, it’ll be all my fault.” He slapped him hard even as he slicked his own cock, “you don’t really care that we have your sister, you aren’t offering herself for her, you just wanted the excuse.” He tugged on the chain and with a hiss of pain Aya lowered himself, Crawford grabbed his hips and slipped the head of his cock just inside as Aya cried out, “scream for me.” He said as he slipped inside all the way. “My pretty little slut.”

Crawford took his pleasure quickly, with short ragged breaths and sinking his teeth hard into the cords of Aya’s neck, careless of whether his partner came as he sunk his nails into his thighs, his wrist through the chain so it pulled on all the piercings even the one on his stomach. The pain jolted him into orgasm, his cum shooting up in an arc over his chest and face. “Mine,” Crawford said, “and you know it.”

Aya didn’t have anything to say and behind him the man sang.

_“I don't care if you don't want me. 'Cause I'm yours, yours, yours anyhow.”_


	2. Chapter 2

Aya found the cell phone in his pocket the next morning when it rang. He hurt, his back stung and he ached like he had overworked himself at his katas. He had collapsed, fully clothed in a pair of Crawford’s slacks and a sweater, unto his bed and slept so deeply he thought he might be dead. Till the phone rang.

  
He flipped it open with a grunt. “Be at the park, three fifteen, the second street lamp by the ice cream vendor.” It was Crawford who sounded more cogent than anyone had the right to at, he squinted at the clock, six fifteen in the morning. “Alone.” Then before Aya could answer him about being on shift or whether or not he wanted to attend he hung up.

He showered, the soap on the loofah stung his back but Farfarello had removed the needles, but the ring in his navel was still there. He had even given him some ointment to stop it getting infected. It wasn’t how he expected Schwarz to behave. Farfarello had assured him that this was all for the pretties and not for him, but it was still more kind than he expected.

He had showered there when Crawford was done with him, and been dressed in Crawford’s clothes before being given an hour to sit with his sister. Nagi had been sat beside her, her hair had been freshly washed and there were forget-me-nots in a vase. The boy had been reading to her from a book, The Little Prince. She looked better cared for than she had in the hospital.

They had even given him share of the pizza that they had ordered for dinner, Farfarello had squatted like a goblin on the couch, Crawford and Schuldig were absent but Nagi proved to be a pleasant conversationalist in that he ignored Farfarello’s silly sausage song and ate a single slice of pizza before handing Aya a cup of tea and wandering off to play his computer. He left Aya with a strange comment, “Schuldig will do what he can to hurt people, it’s what he wants.” Then without looking at him he continued, “but Crawford will hurt people to get what he wants.”

Those words left a sour taste in Aya’s mouth.

They had weighed heavily in his head all the way home, and he expected them to haunt him in his sleep. He didn’t dream.  
  


 

His breakfast tasted like ash in his mouth, “Omi,” he said, “I have to leave early today.” He didn’t know why he wanted to meet Crawford, but he would, as he’d said, he’d do anything.

“You switched with Yotan last week so he could go on that date,” Omi said licking the end of his pencil, “so he can cover for you tonight.” He crossed out Aya’s name on the schedule and replaced it with Yohji’s. “That frees you up from noon, is that okay, Ayan?”

Aya nodded and thought it really shouldn’t be that easy.  
  


 

He was distracted all the way through his shift, which included drinking the soda he kept on hand to keep the plants fresh instead of the tea Ken brought him. He created strangely beautiful ikebana in which everything was perfectly off balance. Ken started to avoid him.

Yohji came in at about half eleven with an exclamation that “all is well, Minna no Kudoh Yohji is in the building.” Aya just laid his head on the table and mumbled, “sell something or leave.”

Omi looked across at him, “Aya, Yohji’s here, you can go now if you want.” The trouble was Aya wasn’t sure if he wanted to.  
  


 

He showered again, and used the ointment, which stung like a bastard, on his piercing. The sharpie markers that Farfarello had used to mark him as Crawford’s property had stained his skin. “A Caltrop,” Crawford had said, “was poisoned and thrown at enemy attackers, if it didn’t hit them it stuck in the ground so when they stood on it it pierced their feet and poisoned them that way. It is a thoroughly relentless weapon.” He ran his fingers over the grey mark and considered having it done properly before he met Crawford.

He had pulled on a jacket and was halfway to the door before he realised he had made his mind up.  
  


 

The tattoo parlour was a door between two larger shops. In fact if not for Yohji having pointed it out once before on a mission he wouldn’t have even known it was there. He went down the little alleyway and up the steps into the shop proper. There was a girl there having a full length image on her back. “Can I help you?” the man said wiping his hands on his apron.

“I,” Aya began, “I want a tattoo.” It was amazing how easy it was to say it after he had made the decision, as quickly as he had. “I want a caltrop.” The man raised a thick black eyebrow and asked where. Aya showed him the mark on his hip, the tattooist showed him the chair and quoted a price. It was much less than Aya had expected.

The man used Farfarello’s drawing as a guide. It didn’t hurt, not like Aya had expected, but it stung. It took maybe ten minutes then the man covered the design in thick ointment and covered it with saran wrap. He even admired Aya’s piercing.  
  


 

Afterwards Aya wandered out into the streets, he still had over an hour till he was due to meet Crawford, his stomach churned at the thought, and he wouldn’t admit it might have been excitement. He had a pepper mint tea and a banana to calm his nerves and possibly settle his stomach. It was all he had eaten.

He found himself sitting on the bench where Crawford had said he’d meet him and just waited.  
  


 

Crawford was exactly on time. He showed up in a long black limousine and just opened the door. Aya’s mouth went dry looking at him. He knew what he wanted. “Get in.” Crawford said, and Aya did.

He sat on the chair facing Crawford. He wore a black Cerutti suit and smelt of lemons and verbena. Aya’s palms felt sweaty. Neither said anything for a long minute as the car pulled away, then Crawford closed the thick glass partition locking them in. Aya’s stomach flip flopped.

“You look tired, didn’t you sleep well?” Crawford said crossing his legs and showing off a hint of black silk sock.

“I had a lot on my mind.” Aya lied, he’d slept like a corpse, but such sleep wasn’t really restful. 

Crawford didn’t answer that. “You know what I want.” He answered calmly.

“I said I’d do anything,” Aya told him bluntly.

“perhaps,” Crawford snorted out a laugh, “but then you don’t have to want it. Do you want it?” He was leaning forward, looking at him over the lenses of his glasses. His eyes were the colour of honey, but hard and brittle.

Aya didn’t answer, he just leant forward, “anything,” he repeated, as if to himself. Crawford lowered his leg and Aya undid his button fly with clumsy fingers and drew out the man’s cock. Even this smelt of lemon and verbena as he drank him in with his nose. He ran his cheek along the soft, fragile skin as his fingers reached underneath for the velvet texture of his scrotum.

There was a song playing through the car, the man had a strange nasal voice and was singing in French.   
_“C'est le malaise du moment_  
 _L'épidémie_ qui _s'étend_  
 _La_ fete est finie _on_ descend  
 _Les pensées_ qui glacent _la_ raison

He ran the meat of his tongue along Crawford’s cock before he lifted it with a cold hand and lifted it into his mouth, it tasted of soap and salt, and thick dark wool. He sucked on him gently as the flesh raised and hardened against the roof of his mouth. Crawford didn’t lay his hand on Aya’s head, he made no movement as if he didn’t even notice.

  
_Paupières baissées, visage gris_   
_Surgissent les fantomes de notre lit_   
_On ouvre le loquet de la grille_   
_Du taudit qu'on appelle maison._

Aya began to hum along to the simple repetitive rhythm of the song because so much depended on him pleasing this man. But around him the nasal voice sang in English, _“protect me from what I want, protect me from what I want, protect me from what I want, protege_ moi _, protege_ moi _.”_

Crawford pushed him back at that and undid the fly on his trousers with a deft hand. There was no tenderness between them. He roughly manhandled Aya’s cock, bringing it to a quick and painful erection before he pushed down him trousers. From a compartment in the door he brought out a tin of Vaseline and worked two fingers into Aya as the man continued to sing his strange French love song.

 _“Sommes nous_ les jouets _du_ destin  
 _Souviens_ toi _des moments_ divins  
Planants _, éclatés_ au matin  
 _Et_ maintenant _nous_ sommes _tout_ seuls  
 _Perdus_ les _reves de_ s'aimer  
 _Les temps où on_ avait rien fait  
 _Il nous_ reste toute une _vie pour_ pleurer  
 _Et_ maintenant _nous_ sommes _tout_ seuls _”_

Aya pushed himself back on the intruding fingers, glad it hurt, glad he didn’t enjoy it, glad that Crawford was forcing this on him, that Crawford cared for no pleasure but his own. As he pushed down Aya’s jeans he saw the covered tattoo and smirked into the collar of Aya’s sweatshirt, rubbed his nose against the mark he had left there, and then opened his mouth. He swabbed the skin down with a quick wet swipe of his tongue before sinking in his teeth and sucking, working Aya roughly with two fingers, and his thumb pressed against the bare hip to hold him in place. The Vaseline was slimy and cold and Aya found that he liked that, that Crawford’s fingers were strong and hot, but slick and cool at the same time.

Crawford smelled of musk and lemon and verbena. He smelt crisp and lusty, he had taken off his glasses, but Aya couldn’t remember when. Crawford’s mouth was sucking and biting and then he was jerked forward by the fingers in his ass and the thumb pressing on his hip, brought up as Crawford twisted and pulled and his teeth pulled away the saran wrap over the new tattoo, and ran his tongue over the three blades of the caltrop, and laying an almost gentle kiss against it, before tonguing his navel relentlessly and pulling on the ring there with his teeth. Aya couldn’t help but cast his head back and cry out a little at the pleasure pain of it. 

It felt sinful.

The song changed.

This one was heavier, more suited to the heavy panting they were both doing. Aya was so hard it hurt, and Crawford was slick with saliva and precum.

 _“here I lay_  
 _still and breathless_  
 _just like always_  
still _I want some more.”_

There were two male voices this time, Aya gave himself up to the fingers and the teeth and the wash of hot breath and the heavy bass and the strange two voices. He wanted.

“Tell me,” Crawford husked into the bowl of his hips, “tell me.”  
“roll the windows down  
 _this cool night air is curious_  
 _let the whole world look in_  
 _who cares who sees anything_  
 _I'm your passenger”_

  
“Fuck me,” Aya said, “fuck me so hard I can’t walk again, take that hard cock of yours and fuck me till I can taste your semen at the back of my throat, I’m your creature.”  
With a low and rather sexy chuckle Crawford lowered him unto the head of his cock and pushed him down. He placed both hands on his hips and pushed Aya’s away to the head rest and the seat belt clip as he began to move him, thrusting into him with about as much care as if he was a cheap prostitute he had paid for his pleasure.

_“drop these down and_ _put them on me_

His upthrust stole the air from Aya’s chest.

_nice cool seats_ _there to cushion your knees_

Crawford buried his face into the curve of Aya’s shoulder, biting down with a grunt, “tight,” he murmured, “so fucking tight.”  
 _now to calm me_ _take me around again_

“Harder,” Aya gasped into the headrest, “please, harder.”

_just don't pull over_ _would you please drive faster_

Crawford obliged him, thrusting up hard and throwing his fuck into him.

_roll the windows down_ _this cool night air is curious_

His right hand was flailing by the door, searching about for something to grab, he wanted to, he didn’t know, he wanted…

_let the whole world look in,_ _who cares who sees what tonight_

  
He turned his head and caught Crawford’s ear in his mouth, sucking on the lobe in time to the cock pounding into him carelessly

_roll these misty windows down,_ _to catch my breath again_

  
His orgasm was pooling in his stomach and Crawford had barely touched him, but he wanted, he was so close, he needed.

_and then go and go and go just drive me home, then back again_

He came with a scream and an arched back, pushing Crawford even deeper inside him.

_here I lay just like always,don't let me go_

  
Crawford ran his thumb over the tattoo, pressing hard against it as he came himself with a grunt.

_take me to the edge”_

  
Aya collapsed against Crawford’s chest, his thighs on either side of Crawford’s and just struggled to catch his breath.


	3. Chapter 3

The next seven days were torture for Aya because Crawford didn’t call. The phone, which he found himself checking every five minutes, was completely dormant in his pocket. He watched in dismay as underneath his sweater the bite mark on his neck faded yellow into his skin. Crawford had been explicit in his instructions when he had left Aya in Shibuya after their meeting in the car; he had said that he’d call. He hadn’t.

  
Aya ached.

He didn’t want to, he didn’t like the feel of Crawford’s hands on him; the hunger in Crawford’s honey coloured eyes.  
Crawford forced his body to enjoy it because it pleased him. It was an involuntary reaction on Aya’s part and he assumed that that was what Crawford liked.  
He had no use for the body that was currently betraying him by telling him exactly what it wanted, even if he didn’t. He couldn’t deny that Crawford had been militant in giving pleasure, in knowing the exact moment when pain was necessary. His body was a traitor; it wanted him even if Aya didn’t.

He thumbed open the button on his jeans, checking the phone’s screen where it lay on the table and pulled them open to show the tattoo on his hip. The symbol was raised and slightly rough against his fingertips even though he kept it moist with the cream that the tattoo artist had recommended.

Next door Yohji was relaxing, Aya could tell from the lingering scent of pot under the door and the soft voice of the man singing through the paper thin wall. “Don’t hold yourself like that, cause you’ll hurt your knees.”

Aya’s fingers were cold as they slipped into his briefs and ran the length of his confined cock. His body was a traitor, it wanted.

It had been a long and terrible week.

His cock felt heavy in his hand, hard from just the thought of Crawford.

He ran his palm the length of it, pulling it free from his trousers, feeling it spring free.

It wanted.

_“I kissed your mouth and back, that’s all I need.”_

Crawford never kissed him on the mouth, he was fastidious about it, he kissed his eyes, his brow, his ears, he bit into the tendons of his neck and wrist, the meat of his pectorals and ran his nails through the marks that had healed on his back, but he never kissed him on the mouth.

_“Don’t build your world around,”_

He fell back unto to the bed with his cock in his hand and his breath catching, almost sure he could smell lemon and verbena as he closed his eyes.

_“Volcanoes bring you down.”_

That was all it took. He came not with a scream but a whimper.

 _“What I am to you is not real_  
 _What I am to_ you you _do not need_  
 _What I am to you is not what you mean to me_  
 _You give me miles and miles and mountains and I’ll ask for the same.”_  
  


He must have dozed for a few minutes like that, sprawled half on his bed with his hand in his pants when the phone buzzed twice. He had a message. He stumbled across to the phone and checked the text. It was a PO Box number, the combination for the lock, a date and an address.

  
Perhaps Crawford wasn’t bored with him after all.

  
  
If he had considered the past week torture the next two days proved him wrong. Everything reminded him of sex. Yohji seemed to accidentally brush against him more than usual. Ken ran around the Koneko complaining of the heat only wearing a pair of silky soccer shorts. He had never even found Ken attractive before then. Omi had driven him out of the room by offering him a matching strawberry ice cream Popsicle. 

When the day came around it was raining.

He pulled on a light jacket and went to the post office box as he had been directed and pulled out a card and a small package. The card reminded him he would do anything. He went to the address with the package under his arm, expecting Crawford to be in the small apartment, he wasn’t.

It was a small apartment with a beat up sofa and a clean kitchen. There was a bottle of wine on the counter with a label that said “drink me.”

In the centre of the room was a dress form and from it hung a long sleek black silk dress with a halterneck that tied at the back of the neck. There was a long red wig, not his own dark red but a more golden auburn colour styled into large fat curls. There was even a pair of t bar high heels. He opened the box to reveal the matching lingerie, a pair of

French cut black lace panties and an invisible bra that was obviously made for cross dressing. With a sigh he opened the bottle of wine, he had said anything.  
  


 

He had to shave his legs before he could put on the silk stockings and spent an eternity in front of the twin mirrors in the bathroom making sure the seams were straight before he clipped on the garters. He didn’t know about these things as he rearranged the stick on bra for the twelfth time before he even contemplated the dress. At least the wine was good.

There were chocolates too, thick expensive truffles labelled with an “eat me.” 

He tied the ribbon at the back of his neck and fitted his hair under the wig cap Crawford had provided. He had thought of every detail to his perversion.

There was even makeup, a thick red lipstick in an Elizabeth Arden case, black eye shadow and false lashes. He expected a contact lens case, but he was wrong.

He knew how to put on makeup, Omi had been sent undercover enough times for that.

Then he put on and pinned the wig in place, checking his reflection in the mirror. 

The dress was cut in a low v at the neck and split on either side almost to the lace of his panties, showing off the lace girdle on the stockings and his garter straps. With his height he looked like a movie star from one of the old American movies that Yohji liked, all cheekbones, disdain and bright red lips. 

He was just slipping the diamond bracelets onto his wrist when the phone rang. He opened it with a grunt that could have passed for an answer. “Your limo is waiting downstairs.” Crawford said then hung up.

 

  
The limo was impeccable, one of the very best available with a mini bar and a stoic driver who said nothing to the person in the back of his car. That suited Aya immensely. He had expected something like Crawford’s last call where he had been well and truly fucked in the back of the limo. Crawford obviously awaited him at the restaurant.  
  


 

“Platinum Blonde” was one of the most exclusive clubs in Tokyo, the people who attended it were among the very upper crust of society. The wore tuxedos and elaborate designer gowns. Aya was suddenly reminded of the card in the PO Box and its message. “Anything.”

He wanted to kill someone, preferably a bespectacled precognitive who was smirking at him currently like the cat who got the cream.

A Chinese woman in a cheongsam that ended just below her crotch sidled up to Crawford and draped herself on his arm. “Oh absolutely delicious, Brad, I can see why you went to the effort for this one.” Then leaving a lipsticky kiss on his cheek she left him showing off her long golden legs. She was wearing silver stilettos.

“Sylvia of Parblos,” Crawford said bluntly, perhaps he thought he would ward off Aya’s jealousy, but Aya wasn’t jealous. “An old acquaintance. Shall we dance?”

Crawford looked smug but the tuxedo showed off his waist and shoulders to find advantage. “I needed a date,” he said, “and I didn’t see the point of breaking one in for what would be at most an hour.” His breath was hot and balmy in Aya’s ear. The room was close with the press of bodies and the live band playing songs Aya didn’t know. He could feel himself sweating despite himself, his arm pits felt positively tropical. Crawford’s hand was resting on his ass and he told himself it was because the Oracle was possessive, that he wanted to shame him that he had made him dress like this.

“You look utterly beautiful.” Crawford smirked into his neck, “like one of those pictures they put on the side of American bombers.”

“Ironic.” Aya drawled back.

“Quite deliberately chosen let me assure you.” Crawford said running his fingers the length of Aya’s biceps, “the only thing that almost gives you away is your arms, every man here, and a few of the women want you.” He said clearly, “and I’m the one that will take you into their very expensive, very exclusive bathroom and fuck you. I’m the one that’s going to peel off those soft lace panties and push my hard, hot throbbing cock into your tight little ass, I’m the one that’s going to have those seamed legs around my waist as you lean back against the sink. I’m the one that’s going to push those panties into your mouth to keep you from screaming, and they all think that you’re a girl.” He mouthed Aya’s neck, “and I have no intention of disavowing them of the notion.”

He looked across at Sylvia in her micro short cheongsam who was flirting shamelessly with a middle-aged businessman Aya recognised from the fifty richest list. “And look at Sylvia, she doesn’t like that all the attention is focussed on you, but she likes girls as much as she likes boys. I might invite her in so she can watch me fuck you as hard as you want to be fucked.”

The only thing holding Aya’s erection from spoiling the silk of his dress was a hidden panel in the panties. He didn’t want to be aroused but the air was close and his body had hungered for days, and there was something about being in such a high-class establishment and propagating such a lie. Even the idea of Sylvia of Parblos watching him was making him hot. “She’ll touch herself, you can bet she isn’t wearing panties, and she’ll spread open those long golden legs so you can watch her over my shoulder and I can watch her in the mirror. We won’t lock the door.”

Aya’s skin was burning with desire as Crawford pushed his thigh between Aya’s so it rubbed up against his trapped cock. “Or we could do it here.”

“Bathroom,” Aya squeaked, “now, or I’m going to ruin this dress and you’re going to have a lot of explaining to do.” Crawford’s answering laugh was just sexy.  
  


 

The bathroom was a wonder of marble and frosted grey green glass. The toilets were separated from the sink area by a thick wall covered with thin running rivulets of water. Crawford went for his throat like a vampire and moved Aya’s hand to his crotch, rubbing him through the cloth. He was as hard as Aya. But he did lock the door.

He lifted Aya up even as he winked at the camera over his shoulder, setting him down on the marble countertop. Rather than peel off the panties as he had promised, he ran his hand the length of a white thigh, before opening a small flick knife he had in his pocket. “Hold still.” He said and cut open the ass of them. With a grin that showed his sharp white teeth from his pocket he pulled a small tin of Vaseline and a monogrammed white handkerchief. He stuffed the handkerchief in Aya’s mouth with one hand whilst the other expertly opened the tin and began to slick him up. Aya’s hand quickly undid the button of his trousers and pulled him out, he took the lube quickly because try as he might want to deny it he really wanted this. The silk and the marble made it easy for Crawford to slide him across and unto him with little effort and his cock was hard and hot inside him, like a burning spar. With no preparation Aya was tight and strained and it was best like this. It was best Crawford used him for his own pleasure, even as Crawford’s hands pressed him to the dinner jacket, even as he looked over his shoulder into the wall of water and the shadowy figures just beyond.

It was a turn on to be watched, and some of them were clearly watching through the water, through the glass as Crawford pushed into him with a soft rocking against his tightness that was just short of pain. He wanted to gasp, to cry, to demand but he couldn’t with the handkerchief in his mouth. Crawford put his hand at the back of Aya’s neck, the same way he would cradle a baby and Aya crossed his ankles behind Crawford’s ass, his hands on his shoulders, trying to pull him deeper.

Crawford came quickly with a few muttered jerks and caught his breath still buried in Aya. He rested their foreheads together for a moment then pulled out the handkerchief, “clean yourself up and meet me in the foyer in five minutes.”

Aya knew better than to disobey.


	4. Chapter 4

Crawford had used Aya’s body until Aya had passed out unable to take it any more. He had taken Aya back to the safe house with the dress form and thrown him on the bed, he went one way and the silk dress he wore went the other. He had then relentlessly fucked him until he was short of sore and then, with the one tremendous orgasm that Crawford allowed him, he passed out.

  
He woke up to the sound of someone in the bathroom. He was groggy and ached as if he had overdone himself at weights and he had the strangest memory of soft fingers brushing the hair from his face that he might have dreamt.

Crawford stood in front of the vanity mirror in the bathroom, the sink was full of soapy water and he was lathering his face with a small badger-hair brush in preparation for shaving. He wore the pants and shirt from the previous night, but the shirt was ruffled and open at the collar. Had it been anyone else Aya would have said that he looked dishevelled but Crawford didn’t, he still looked immaculate. He didn’t wear his glasses; they were neatly folded shut on the shelf in front of him.  
Aya sat down on the closed lid of the toilet to watch him. He used a silver razor he kept in a leather case, building together the handle and the blade before he began to shave.

Aya didn’t have to shave so it fascinated him.

Crawford used the razor to slowly peel away the foam from his cheeks in slow dextrous pulls. There was a faint scratching sound as he did it.

If anything Crawford seemed faintly amused by Aya’s scrutiny. It was only when he dipped the razor into the water and shook it with a firm jerk of the wrist that Aya realised that not only had Crawford never kissed him on the mouth, which he knew, but he hadn’t seen him naked. They had fucked until Aya moved like an old man but he had never seen his, he balked at the word lover, naked. Standing here in his socks as he shaved, his hair already styled, was really the most exposed Aya had seen him.  
Aya on the other hand, was completely naked. He had one knee pressed against his chest and was resting his chin on it, his arms draped around his shin, the other stretched out in front of him. It was clear that Crawford was appraising him in the mirror.

 

 

“Do you have anything planned for today?” Crawford asked although he must have known that Aya did not. “Because I have a few errands that you could run for me.” From the pocket of his slacks he pulled a black credit card and a small silver pen, it was only the length of the card, taking Aya’s hand within his own, palm up, he wrote down a four digit number. “Nagi needs new clothes, you can meet him in Shibuya, make sure the two of you get something to eat.” Then he washed the last of the foam from his face, and rubbed Aya’s head rather condescendingly, “you’re both too thin. It’s like fucking a bag of bones.” 

 

It was the only sign of affection, or anything rather than sexual determination, that Crawford had ever shown him. Yet he could swear he had felt soft fingertips pushing away the strands of hair on his cheek. It had to have been a dream. “I’ve left you some clothes on the bed.”

“Why do you insist on dressing me?” Aya asked, more surprised and hurt than vengeful. 

If Crawford had been a normal man he might have laughed, instead he just looked smug, “you are my personal kiseki doll, and I will dress you however I like.” 

Aya lowered his head realising it was part of their arrangement and Crawford could do much, much worse to him without violating their agreement, Aya had used the word Anything.

Crawford left the apartment whilst Aya sat in the small bathroom for much longer than he should have, looking at the four numbers he had written in black ink on his palm and the small black sliver of plastic. 

Crawford had given him his credit card and pin.  
  


 

There was a pair of frayed black jeans on the bed, and two tees, both of which were cut off to show his stomach, where the jeans sat on his hips. One of the tees was black with red and black striped long sleeves and the other was black with a small girl on the front hiding a large knife behind her back and the legend “thinking of you”, there was a post it note stuck to it with the words “I go on top.” With a sigh Aya pulled on the clothes.

In the pocket of the jeans, which were obscenely tight in his opinion, was a small business card and on the back of it, in the same tidy script was an address and the words “he’ll be waiting here.”   
  


Nagi stood exactly where Crawford had said studiously ignoring the crowd of teenage girls that were pointing at him and giggling. He wore a slim black tee with long sleeves and black jeans that made him look almost painfully thin. In his uniform he looked sylph like but suddenly Aya understood why Crawford had been at such pains to tell him to feed the boy. Omi was still plump with puppy fat, that he would lose, Nagi looked like one of the abused dogs you saw on animal programs.

“So you’re to be my guardian today,” Nagi said drily, “I would have thought that you’d have left long before now.” 

“He wants me to dress and feed you.” Aya answered. “He gave me his card.” 

Nagi, like Aya, wasn’t given much to talking so he didn’t say anything but Aya knew he was disdainful.  
  


 

Despite, or probably because of, his quiet nature Nagi turned out to be good company. Even though they didn’t speak it turned out they had a lot in common. When Nagi had lifted, and then placed a book down, Aya paid for it for him out of his own money, after all it was just a book.

Nagi looked at him strangely before saying “you’re different from his last pets.” His voice was calm and even, “before they tried to buy me to curry his favour, you don’t care.”  
Aya didn’t know what to say to that so he said nothing.

Nagi offered him a truth as payment, “Farfarello hurts people because he feels nothing himself, not lust, not desire, not pain. He envies people that. Schuldig hurts people because otherwise their minds overwhelm him; he does it to keep himself whole. He knows if they feel pain he has caused that they are not him.

“Crawford hurts people as an after-effect. He is patient and ruthless, that makes him the most dangerous of us all.” 

“He cares for you,” Aya told him, “in his own way.”

Nagi looked amused by that revelation as they went into the restaurant. “I was ten when I manifested, I did it by killing my parents. I spent the next year in an orphanage that was destroyed by Weiss.” If that shocked Aya it didn’t show. “Crawford didn’t take me in because he pitied me, or feared me, or cared, he did it because I would become powerful with the right training. I imagine he thinks the same of you.”

“I doubt that,” Aya answered, “all he’s interested in is my ass.”

Nagi laughed into his bowl of soba, “keep telling yourself that, Abyssinian, keep telling yourself that.”


	5. Chapter 5

Aya took Nagi to the cinema to see some movie the kid plainly wasn’t old enough for despite his protestations that he was fifteen, and made sure that he ate all the candy he was given. He was sickeningly ill, like a child on a documentary about anorexia. He took him back to the safe house that Schwarz shared, hoping, he supposed, to see his sister.  
Nagi went quiet at the door. “You better go back,” he said with his key in his hand, “it’s not safe.”

  
There was music on loud in the apartment, “I hear it fading, I can not speak it or else you will dig my grave.”

“What?” Aya asked.

“It’s Schuldig.” Nagi said, “just go.”

“Will you be okay?” Aya asked.

Nagi looked saddened by the question, “Just go.”

He didn’t get a chance as the door opened from the inside and the lanky German slouched in the doorway to block the way, as behind him a man rasped, “you see I cannot be forsaken, because I’m not the only one.” “Guten abend, kind,” he drawled but the look in his eyes was one of apocalypse, “und die katzchen, wunderbar.” He grabbed Nagi by the shoulder, “you and I, little boy, are going to have a long talk.”

“Leave him alone,” Aya found himself saying. It surprised him, but Nagi was so small and delicate, in comparison Schuldig was a giant.

“Stay out of this,” Schuldig warned, “this is nothing to do with the pretty little kitty who’s only here to see his sister, don’t put your pretty little nose where it doesn’t belong, alley cat, or it might get bitten off.” 

“He’s half the size of you,” Aya warned him stepping between them, “if you want him you’ll have to go through me.” Schuldig had the audacity to laugh before a backhand caught Aya across the jaw and almost tumbled him. “Do you have to fight with your fists, Mastermind, or is that a contradiction in terms?” Aya asked deliberately provoking him, Schuldig was going to give someone a beating and it looked like it would snap stick thin Nagi in two, he could give as good as he got but he didn’t want Schuldig to turn his attention back to the boy. He could look after himself but he wasn’t sure Nagi could without Crawford there to protect him. He practically threw the boy behind him.

“This has nothing to do with you, kitten.” Schuldig growled through gritted teeth, “give me the boy.”

“No,” Aya replied, Schuldig launched at him like a cat, his fists driving into his jaw and abdomen, then grabbing him by the front of his jeans. Nagi had taken advantage of the shield Aya had presented and left him to his fate.

Even as Schuldig ripped away the fly of his jeans Aya was smiling, licking the blood from the side of his mouth. The sight of the tattoo on his hip enraged Schuldig further, “fucking precognitive,” he snarled and started kicking to add to the blows, “fucking Crawford, fucking kind, fucking Japan.”  
  


  
When he woke up there was a cold compress over his eyes, “and what possessed you to step in between those two?” Crawford asked.

Aya was lain out on the divan sofa where Crawford had first fucked him, his shoes had been removed and he felt like shit. He started to probe around his mouth with his tongue. “He’s twice the size and weight of Nagi if you dipped the boy in water.”

“Nagi can look after himself, and he did provoke it.” Crawford poured him a glass of brandy and put it in his hand, “there are some things you don’t get in the middle of, and getting between Schuldig and Nagi during one of their spats isn’t one of them. Even Farfarello keeps out of the way.” Aya sat up to sip the brandy, “Schuldig’s like a child someone took his favourite toy from and Nagi winds him up till he snaps.” Aya hissed as the liquid hit the split in his lip. “if you could see yourself now.”

“Let me guess, black blue and swollen.” Aya answered.

“Actually no,” Crawford said, “you look dishevelled and debauched, as if someone gave you the fucking of a life.” He looked at the brandy, “when you’ve finished that you can go, meet me at this address on Thursday, the bruises will be out by then.”

Holding the card as Crawford walked away Aya didn’t even bother to look at the address and knew he would be there just exactly when it said because he had agreed to it.  
  


  
Omi was waiting up for him when he came home, he was sat against Aya’s door with his arms crossed. “Aya-kun,” he said standing up, “what happened?”

“There was a mugging, I stepped in, the old lady thought I was the person who was attacking her and attacked me with her handbag,” he unlocked the door, “I’m fine, Omi, the only thing really hurt was my pride.”

“I don’t know,” Omi said barging into the apartment, “we’re worried about you, you wander off at strange hours, you come home, you don’t say anything, you’re slacking off in the shop.” He pursed his lips, “is it drugs?”

It was all Aya could do not to laugh. “No,” he said, “I was looking for my sister, I found a lead, that’s all.”

“Ayan,” Omi continued, “if its drugs, you can tell us, we can help, I mean we can overlook a little pot every now and again, or we’d never get Yohji to do anything, but…”

Aya gave him a rather disdainful look, “I’m fine, Omi, really, now I’ve had a full day and I have no intention of doing anything other than having a bath and getting into bed.”

“Have you eaten today?” Aya rolled his eyes, of all the times for Omi to pick to give him an intervention.

“Yes,” he said, “I had a large western breakfast of three cinnamon bagels and tea, then I had pizza for lunch and I had a large bucket of popcorn and candies, and after I got the shit kicked out of me by some little old lady I got myself a whiskey to soothe my ego and walked home. I’m fine, I’m not drinking heavily, and I’m not doing drugs.” He pulled his tee up over his head and throwing it unto the bed, “I am fine, you don’t have to worry about me.”

Omi sighed. “When did you get the tattoo?” 

Aya took a deep breath and let it out slowly, “months ago,” he lied, “it represents relentlessness, being ruthless to get your goal.”

“It’s just not like you.” Omi told him.

“Do you know me well enough to make that kind of call?” Aya snapped, then lowered his eyes, “Omi, I’m tired and cranky, I’ll be fine.”

Omi looked sceptical but left him anyway.

Aya kept his word, he had a bath and went to bed. His dreams, however, were of Crawford.  
  


 

Aya had manhandled the card Crawford had given him many times by the time he arrived at the address written on it. There was also some kind of code written in violet ink in the corner, MS w/C. it meant nothing to him. 

The address Crawford had sent him to was in a rather exclusive part of Tokyo and was a traditional house of paper screens behind thick walls. The woman who opened the gate to him introduced herself as Dorei, she tilted his head after she had read the card he had given her, and smiled to herself.

For the first time since he had made the devils’ bargain with Crawford Aya was afraid. Dorei was as tall as nagi and about as wide, with thin bird like fingers and hard eyes, but there was something about her that made her seem vast and monstrous.

 

  
When Crawford arrived Aya was mortified with embarrassment which just made Dorei clap her hands together and take more photos. He was tied. 

He was on his knees with his face turned towards a rather elaborate piece of ikebana, with a diamond pattern binding his thighs and buttocks, it turned out the MS had stood for Momo-shibari, or peach knot. 

What Dorei had called a Matanawa had been tied around his genitals and up through the crack of his ass, where two ropes pulled his buttocks apart in a cherry knot. That was all Crawford had requested. THe rest she had done herself. There was a knot around his neck attached to a rein, his arms were tied in a pearl knot around his pectorals and there was a diamond pattern over his stomach and back, and his ankles were tied shut. His wrists were held out in front of him, and a rope stretched between them and his ankles preventing his movement.

It was embarrassing enough to be tied like this but Dorei had declared him good enough to eat and had made a phone call before setting up a camera with an assistant and taking photos with long stemmed violet roses on his back. She didn’t even care when he scowled.

He felt exposed and trapped and painfully aware that he was naked and the rough edged purple rope was running around his cock and balls every time he breathed. As a final touch to her art she had wiped a swathe of lipstick in the pucker of his ass as a counterpoint to his hair.

 

  
Dorei led Crawford in pretending to be a frail old woman. There was nothing frail about her, Crawford bowed to her and she left. Her assistant, a pale and rather uninteresting girl who called herself E-mo brought them tea and laid the tray on Aya’s back.

“Lovely,” Crawford said appraising the work of art he had commissioned. “You really have no idea just how extraordinary you look, with the purple rope bringing out the bruises that Schuldig gave you.” He picked up one of the powdered rice cakes and held to Aya’s mouth to be eaten. “You look more than good enough to eat.”

As he drank his tea, with Aya’s face turned away from him staring at a pot of chrysanthemums in the corner, he ran one hand over his calf muscles, lingering against the rope and skin and Aya was hard, he had been hard from the rope stimulating him before, but it was fast becoming uncomfortable. Every throb from his cock stimulated his balls and up between the cleft of his ass, it pulled at his neck and wrists, which in turn agitated his legs causing the rope to tug again at his cock. He was utterly helpless and his body loved it.

Crawford then rubbed his finger in the sugar from the plate and began to rub it at Aya’s ass. It was cold and grainy but the rouge that Dorei had put there had made him slick, then the tray was gone from his back and Crawford moved behind him, taking the leash from around his neck in his hand.

He could feel Crawford’s heat and hear him, but he could not see him, even though he was not blindfolded.

Washing over him with a breath Crawford began to lick him clean of the sugar. Aya cried out then. Crawford was using the whole flat of his tongue against the flesh pulled apart by the cherry knot. He was exposed but Crawford was covering him with his tongue then with as Aya moaned, unable to help himself, the very act of breathing causing the rope to slither about his cock and balls, Crawford speared his tongue into him.

He tried to cast back his head but he couldn’t. The ropes held him tight.

Crawford reached around his thigh and just formed an o with finger and thumb around his cock, it was all it took, just that touch and Crawford’s tongue and the ropes touching him. He came.

When he had finished, his face against the floor trying to catch his breath Crawford wrapped the leash about his fist and pulled him almost upright, then using his own spit as lubrication he pushed inside Aya. It was too much. It was not enough. He wanted to move, to force Crawford to move, not to just be inside him, but to thrust, to fuck him, to do something – he couldn’t.

Crawford just stayed as he was against him, balls deep inside him and measured his breaths.

Aya was arched as much as the ropes would let him, feeling like a toy used for Crawford’s pleasure, just a body, almost debased and could feel himself stirring again, the sensation pleasurably painful like the throbbing cock inside him.

When Crawford pulled him back unto his lap all the muscles in his thighs screamed but it just pushed Crawford deeper inside him as he started to rock, his hand slowly pulling on Aya’s spent cock, lubricated with his own semen and covered by the rope around his neck and Aya couldn’t help himself, he cast his head back and took it.  
Crawford came with an animal growl, forcing himself up as far as he could inside him, Aya came quickly after and just lay back against Crawford’s chest to catch his breath, Crawford just pushed him forward so he lay face down on the tatami.


	6. Chapter 6

The ruins of the Kou academy burned slowly as Yohji was carried away on a gurney into the hospital that Crashers had taken them to.

Omi followed him, with Nagi at a close distance behind, Ken was giving reports and Schuldig was complaining loudly about a burn on his arm that was the size of a penny. Aya took Crawford by the arm and led him out of the hospital and into the car parked outside. They said nothing throughout the drive until they reached the motel room where Aya had been lodging throughout the mission. “sit down,” Aya snarled, “you’re hurt.”

Crawford slipped the monocle from his eye and then ran his hand through short white hair. He looked entirely different but at the same time exactly the same. It was uncanny.

“I’m fine.” He said.

Aya used his entire body to force Crawford backwards to sit on the bed. “You’re hurt.” He repeated looking at the trickle of blood that ran along his cheek and neck.

“It’s nothing.” Crawford said.

“You’re bleeding.” Aya said bluntly, “everyone else is much more hurt than we are, let me tend your wounds.” He turned to fetch the medical kit from the side and Crawford found his feet again.

“You grew your hair.” Crawford said quietly.

Aya forced him seated again, shrugging the question away before he asked his own, “why did you come to help us?”

“Nagi,” Crawford said as Aya dipped a cotton bud into surgical spirit and wiped at Crawford’s face with it. “He said he wanted to release his debt to you?” It was oddly personal the way that Crawford said it, the debt wasn’t to Weiss- it was to Aya.

“And what did Nagi owe me?” Aya asked, and then opened a box of butterfly strips to fix the skin around Crawford’s eye. 

“You once took a beating that was his, you didn’t need to do that, and he remembered.” Crawford said, “I told him that you would not consider it a debt but he saw it differently.” He looked vulnerable with the butterfly strips beside his eye, although his hair was bleached and dyed a pale silver, his lashes were still dark and long. 

“I took the beating because it seemed that he would break if a breeze struck him, he’s taller but still as thin as a reed. I’d take the beating for him again tomorrow.”  
Crawford laughed, “he’s not the same person that you think him.” He said quietly. “He’s probably the strongest of us all.”

“Maybe,” Aya shrugged, “but he’s still too thin.”

“So speaketh the scarecrow.” Crawford said.

“Why?” Aya said, “your hair, your glasses,” he looked him up and down, “that suit?”

“Esset hunt us,” Crawford answered as Aya began to tend to the cut on his neck, it was a thin slash that had bled copiously but was not dangerous. “We needed to hide.”

“And Farfarello?” he asked.

“He married and is living happily in Germany, it’s hard for us to pass through airports looking as we used to. This suits us for now.” He looked at Aya. “You have changed too,” he said, “you have grown into your skin.”

“I grew my hair.” Aya said, touching the roughly cut strands at the back. “I was a teacher, it was peaceful.”

“Too peaceful?” Crawford asked, “it would never have suited you for too long, there is fire in your soul.”

“You and I,” he said, taping the last piece of gauze over Crawford’s neck, “we always were the same, it just took me a while to realise that.” He opened his suitcase, “here,” he said throwing a shirt at him, “I’m broader in the shoulders now, it’ll probably fit, the one you’re wearing is ruined.”

Crawford nodded and then slipped off the jacket he was wearing. “Why do you care this much?” He couldn’t understand this, “I am your enemy.”

“No you weren’t,” Aya answered, “you just had a different agenda, had you been my enemy then I would have killed you. Kritiker never set you as a target, you just got in the way for a short time.”

“Truce?” Crawford asked.

“Honour amongst assassins,” Aya corrected him. “Why did you seduce me?” The question seemed to come out of nowhere, as if he had no preparation for it. It surprised Aya as much as Crawford.

“Lots of reasons,” Crawford answered, as he removed the ruined shirt he wore, there was a terrible bloodstain down his right shoulder from the cut on his neck and eye. “And I Saw it.”

“What’s it like?” Aya asked, “seeing the future, I think that you owe me that much, Nagi thought I owed him for taking a beating, what do you owe me for taking my virginity the way that you did?”

“It’s not like you expect,” Crawford said, “it’s like a movie I’ve already seen but can’t remember until I’m prompted. It’s like constantly living in déjà vu. I don’t always know to trust it, I had to learn to roll with it before it drove me mad.”

“Did you See me?”

Crawford raised his eyebrow and then hissed as it pulled at the wound on his face. “Do you really want to know that? I Saw you, and I wanted you, and I could See your hunger for me.”

“How?” Crawford asked.

“You drove Schuldig half mad with lust,” Crawford laughed, “he thought that if you stopped repressing you would have started humping my leg. I understood you better than that, you didn’t want me, you wanted my strength. You wanted me to make you want me.”

“You told me that.”

Crawford smiled for him, it was a desirous thing between them. “I did.” He said.

Then there was silence, it was uncomfortable and stretched on and on, Crawford sat and Aya stood before him. Each of them obviously wanted to ask the other something but neither dared.

After a few truly awkward minutes Aya turned away from Crawford’s golden eyes and took a small bottle from the medical kit and threw it at him, “here, they won’t make you drowsy.”

They were silent for a while as Crawford dry swallowed the pain killers, then looked at Aya for the first time since they had come to this room. He really looked at him, noting the inches he had grown in height, the confidence he now had to his stride and how, if he had been lovely before, he was beautiful now, and it was a man’s beauty.

“I don’t understand you,” Crawford said eventually, “I would have thought you’d be surrounded by a horde of women, like Kudoh on a good day.”

Aya snorted, “there was a girl, at Kou,” he looked pained for a moment and then covered it up quickly. “It was pathetically boring, fucking her, I wondered what on earth I was doing wrong. Then Tsuji killed her and it all became easier, I could kill Tsuji to avenge her.”

“Killing is easier than understanding.” Crawford said magnanimously, and then laughed, “but you were the first lover I’d had in ten years and the last I’ve had.”

“It was never boring with you.” Aya said quietly then turned away. “Even when I thought I hated it I was never bored.”

They were quiet again, “where will you go now?” Crawford asked, “I don’t See that Weiss has a future, with only two members left in action and one of those compromised.” Aya for a moment looked as if he thought that he might be that one, but then realised he had meant Ken who loved the blood more than he should.

“I don’t know.”

“I will be in New York,” Crawford said, “I have business there, legitimate business.” He lay back against the mattress with his feet still flat on the floor. “Put the radio on, please, I don’t like the quiet.”

Aya blinked in surprise and then realised just how easy it must be to lose himself in the flow of time without something to anchor him and thumbed the switch on the hotel radio. It was a small room with certain amenities but it did have a clock radio on the bedside.

It was tuned to American forces radio and it was strange how it brought back memories for Aya. He assumed this must be a hotel favoured by the soldiers on leave when they came from the nearby base. It was cheap and clean.

From across the sea a man played a bluesy harmonica and an acoustic guitar, the DJ introduced the song in English and Aya didn’t bother to listen to him, just the harmonica and the acoustic guitar and the faltering beat of the drum.

_when they call your name,_   
_will you walk right up,_   
_with a smile on your face_

He looked at Crawford lying on the bed with his eyes closed, mouthing along to the lyrics and made his mind up, undoing his coat to let it fall on the floor. Whatever it had been with Crawford, it hadn’t been boring, and it had made him feel alive.

_Will you cower in fear_   
_with your favourite sweater_   
_and an old love letter_

He laid down next to him on the bed and laid his own face into the curve of Crawford’s neck, inhaling the smell of blood and lingering aftershave. Crawford’s skin was rough.  
 _I wish you would_  
 _I wish you would,_  
 _come pick me up_  
 _Take me out,_  
 _fuck me up,_  
 _steal my records_  
 _Screw all my friends_  
 _they’re all full of shit_  
 _With a smile on your face_  
 _and then do it again_  
 _I wish you would._

Crawford tilted his head towards him, it was quizzical as Aya inhaled him, he scented him and then as their faces met Crawford kissed him.

It puzzled Aya for it was the first kiss that they had ever shared. They had fucked but they had never kissed.

Crawford’s kiss was soft and slow, like the song. As his tongue slowly slipped along Aya’s own and his lips pressed and pulled, he tasted of blood and the coffee he had drunk in the hospital. Aya wanted to melt into him. 

_“When you’ re walking_ down town _,_  
 _do you wish I was there,_  
 _do you wish it was me”_

The song was weaving it’s strange magic over the two of them, as their touches lacked the fever they should have had after two years, the venom that Aya felt when Crawford had taken off after the temple, then the loathing he had built. There was nothing but the song, the feel of his heartbeat, strong and steady and his tongue slipping over Aya’s.  
He pulled back and looked into Aya’s eyes with a frank certainty. “Do you want this?” He asked.

And Aya did, he couldn’t think of words to answer so he just kissed him again.

_With the windows clear_   
_and the mannequins eyes_   
_Do they all look like mine?_

Crawford’s fingers were clumsy on his shirt, they were like new lovers discovering each other, each loathe to relinquish the kissing even as they scooted up the bed to the pillows. Crawford hadn’t bothered to button up the shirt that Aya had given him and it made it easy to push off his shoulders.

His skin was warm and real and slightly velvety to the touch. He could not get enough as he ran his hands in soothing circles over his chest and back. Aya’s shirt was pushed back impatiently with half of the buttons undone as Crawford slipped his hands down his back and just appreciated the texture of his skin.  
 _You know you could_  
 _I wish you would_  
 _Come pick me up_

Aya fumbled with the belt of Crawford’s pants, “can I?” he asked leaning back to try and catch his breath.

“Please.” Crawford told him, and Aya undid his fly and reached his hand inside.

_Take me out_   
_Fuck me up_   
_Steal my records_   
_Screw all my friends_

There was a certain lustiness to the way they lay, twisted together like socks, each had his cock in the other’s hand as they kissed and lapped and licked at each other’s mouth. Aya pulled his face back for a moment, his left hand cupping Crawford’s cheek for a moment, “I want to see you,” he said, “I want you inside me, but I want to see you first.”  
Crawford rolled unto his back and with a strangely fluid motion slipped out of his pants and lay before Aya completely naked. It was not without a sense of worry because he did not know how his body would be received. There was a shadow of hair across his chest that trailed down to a dark nest where his cock stood tall and proud slick with pre-come and eager for Aya’s hand.

Aya didn’t remove his pants quite so elegantly but nevertheless Crawford reached out with tentative fingers to the terrible scar on his chest. It had not been there before. Then he reached forward and kissed it and in that moment Aya forgot about any awkwardness he might have and felt worshipped.

_Lie on my back_   
_With a smile on your face_   
_And then do it again_

Crawford was the one to leave the bed looking for something to use as lubrication, a tube of antiseptic jelly was the best he could find. He looked at Aya, who had spread himself open, his hands on the back of his thighs where he held them to his chest.

“This will probably sting.” Crawford told him.

“I don’t care,” Aya said, “just kiss me as you fuck me.”

_I wish you would_   
_I wish you’d make up bed_   
_So I could make up mind_

If the jelly stung Aya gave no sign of it as Crawford’s fingers twisted inside him, there was little of the usual urgency between them, Crawford rubbed and twisted because it felt good for both of them. He could have done this forever, he could have done this till Aya, who was gasping and thrusting his head back against the pillows, came from it. But this was not what Aya wanted.

_Try it for sleeping instead_   
_Maybe you’ll rest sometime_

He guided his cock with his hand and slowly, as slowly as he could, slipped inside.

_I wish I could_

They lay there, rocking and kissing and kissing and rocking back and forth, through one orgasm and then another as if they couldn’t stop, Aya’s hands clutched at Crawford’s back pulling him deeper even as he rolled his hips up. Crawford did his best to thrust in as far as he could in slow deep strokes because that felt better, it prolonged the pleasure until eventually there was no more and it was over.

_I wish I could_

He slipped out of Aya ruefully and then Aya rolled with a comfortable sigh unto his back and Crawford draped himself alongside him.

_I wish I could_

“Will you come to New York?” Crawford asked.

They lay there for a moment in the stale hospital sheets and Crawford began to suspect that Aya might be asleep then he spoke up, “I don’t know.”


End file.
